an article by Paul Harrison
As part of New Zealand Government support to the Commonwealth Trans–Antarctic Expedition of 1955–58, the RNZAF formed the Antarctic Flight at Wigram on 1 May 1956. The Flight was equipped with a DHC–2 Beaver (NZ6001/NZ6010) and an ex–RAF Auster Mk7c Antarctic (NZ1707, ex–WE563).
The Beaver and Auster were deployed to Scott Base via ship to McMurdo Sound during the 1956 summer season. The Auster was mounted on floats and, after offloading into McMurdo Sound, was test flown by Flg Off William (Bill) Cranfield. It was then converted to skis and for the remainder of that summer flew missions in support of the field parties.
During the long winter night of 1957 the Auster, which was picketed in a depression near Scott Base, was on occasion dug out and flown. During the summer of 1957–58 both aeroplanes were kept busy supporting the deployed teams of scientists from the American and New Zealand bases, and both were returned to New Zealand in March 1958.
The Antarctic Flight was reactivated in April 1959 and the two aircraft were shipped to the southern continent for the summer season of 1959–60.
On 15 January 1960, while returning from the Polar Plateau, the Beaver, flown by Sqn Ldr Les Jeffs with copilot Peter Rule, crashed on the Beardmore Glacier when flying in whiteout conditions. Both pilots escaped unscathed from the inverted and wrecked Beaver, largely thanks to their newly issued helmets. Using the emergency ‘Gibson Girl’ radio they managed to alert the Beardmore and Scott Base camps of their plight.
The Beaver was fitted with survival equipment: tent, food, cooking stove and fuel enough for up to eight days in normal Antarctic conditions. The weather during the next few days prevented ground and air search parties from locating the downed fliers. On the fourth day the two pilots attempted to mark out a temporary runway on the glacier so that a USN R4D Dakota could land.
At around midday of day five, an R4D attempted to land, but at the last moment its crew spotted crevasses that had not been seen by the two downed pilots and so the landing was aborted — after almost joining the Beaver as the approach had been made uphill. However, additional supplies were dropped.
Having seen for himself the Beaver’s perilous position from the R4D, Bill Cranfield went back to Scott Base with the knowledge that only one aircraft would be able to rescue the downed men, and that was the Auster. The helicopters available did not have the range and the pilot of the American Otter had insufficient experience.
Bill flew out alone in NZ1707 about 300 miles to an unmanned fuel dump established immediately north of the Shackleton Glacier (later renamed the Nimrod) at a lonely and desolate site. Located immediately north of the broken and disturbed region where the glacier entered the Ross Ice Shelf and south of a similar but much worse disturbed area caused by the Barne Glacier, it was marked by a rock bluff and a small hill glacier.
Having refuelled there on his own, he flew on to the American emergency strip at the Beardmore depot, about 5½ hours’ flying from base. Here low cloud had moved in, there was nothing to be seen and he had not enough fuel to return. On the radio the Americans at the strip offered to light a fire as the pilot was running out of options and landing blind was the only one left.
They sacrificed a spare aircraft tyre and in the still air black smoke was soon rising a few hundred feet through the ground fog and cloud. Bill came in with full flap at a steady rate of descent until a few jolts announced his arrival.
Not until 1500 on the seventh day did the persistent fog lift sufficiently for Bill to land the Auster near the crashed Beaver. After unloading additional food and kerosene for the cooking stove, he was airborne with one passenger at 1540. In the meantime fog had closed in once again at the Beardmore Depot, preventing landing, and the Auster returned to the crash site at 1735. There was sufficient fuel in the Auster for only one more flight, so it was picketed out and Cranfield joined his colleagues in the survival tent for the night. During the night it was noted that the temperature at 2030 hours was 18degF below freezing.
At 2015 on the eighth day Bill Cranfield, with one of the marooned crew as passenger, took off and landed at Beardmore Depot. The Auster with its two occupants finally made the 400 miles from Beardmore Depot to Scott Base on 24 January 1960. Due to continuous bad weather the second Beaver pilot did not reach Scott Base until 2 February 1960 after an absence of 23 days.
The site of the crash was about 500 miles from Scott Base and the return flight equivalent to the full length of New Zealand, and it is undoubtedly one of the longest and most dangerous polar rescues ever undertaken by a single–engine fixed wing light aeroplane. In recognition of his outstanding dedication to rescuing the downed Beaver pilots, Bill Cranfield was awarded the Air Force Cross.
The Beaver was abandoned on the Beardmore Glacier — now after 51 years of glacial travel closer to the Ross Ice Shelf. Its memory is kept alive by the Warbirds airworthy Beaver ZK–CKH and the RNZAF Museum display ZK–CMW, both painted as ‘NZ6001’.
NZ1707 was returned to New Zealand at the end of that summer and converted back to a landplane. It continued in service in New Zealand until August 1966 when, after a crash near Kaipara Harbour, it was disposed of to MOTAT. It now resides in the RNZAF Museum at Wigram, a particularly historic and heroic Auster.
- Report by Paul Harrison