Some may be surprised at the reference (page 248) in the new IWC book, “Engineering Time Since 1868” that Sir Edmund Hillary wore an IWC Mark 11 during his part of the 1957 Commonwealth Trans-Antarctic Expedition. Hillary was leader of the support party from Scott Base, and was the third person to travel overland and reach the South Pole (1958) after Amundsen (1911) and Scott (1912).
Two IWC Mark 11 watches were provided, one to Hillary and the other to Bob Miller, Deputy Leader and Senior Surveyor. These were donated by Messers Weiner and Co. of Wellington, the IWC distributors at that time, and described in “Antarctica” by Helm and Miller as “Two first class watches”, while Smiths of England provided a wrist watch for every member.
Hillary had been a Royal New Zealand Air Force navigator duing World War 2, flying on Catalina aircraft, and on the Expedition took an aircraft bubble sextant for navigation purposes. This later leaked and the bubble grew larger making it unreliable as his party made its way to the pole.
During winter Hillary instigated a series of weekly talks, one of which was a Navigation Course conducted by Bob Millar that covered, Dead reckoning, Time – including chronometers and time signals, Practical work with Theodolite and Sextant, etc. So no doubt the IWC Mark 11's were put to good use.
Cheers from the cellar.
Sources:
Antarctica, A.S Helm and J.H Miller
Engineering Time Since 1868, Manfred Fritz, Paulo Coelho and Enki Bilal
Hellbent for the Pole, Geoffrey Lee Martin
No Latitude for Error, Sir Edmund Hillary
The Crossing of Antarctica, Sir Vivian Fuchs and Sir Edmund Hillary
