Edmund Hillary--A Biography

by Michael Gill

  How and where she met Percival Augustus Hillary, seven years older than her and living in Dargaville, some 10 kilometres north of little Te Kopuru, is not recorded. But he was a lively young man with good prospects in the newspaper industry. In the archive is a postcard from Percy, who is smartly dressed and striking a pose between two friends in the whitest of shirts. He writes:

  Dear Gertie, These are three friends of mine, one of whom you know, and thinking it might interest you to see the postcard, I am sending it to you. Yours, Percy.2

  Gertie wrote in the front of her notebook:

  Gertie Clark is my name

  Single is my station

  Happy be the little man

  That makes the alteration.

  But by the second half of 1914 a much bigger alteration was afoot, and on 4 August Britain announced that the nation – surely to be joined by its empire – had declared war on Germany.

  Like most Pākehā New Zealanders, Percy had been raised in the belief that Britain and its far-flung empire represented all that was great and good in the world. She might suffer the occasional setback but always triumphed over enemies, whether in Europe, India, New Zealand or any other part of the globe. For a Pākehā schoolchild in the early twentieth century, it was a British navigator, Captain Cook, who in 1769 had discovered New Zealand and drawn its map. There might have been a distant awareness that Māori navigators had somehow sailed their outrigger canoes to make landfall on the undiscovered islands they called Aotearoa some 600 years earlier, but the magnitude of that achievement went untaught.

  So when war was declared on Germany, Percy wanted his share of the excitement and glory from what would surely be a quick and splendid victory. Along with others from Dargaville, he went to Auckland to volunteer. He was accepted into the 15th North Auckland Infantry.

  Percy kept a record of his war experience in a diary – a thick sheaf of handwritten papers in a confident, round hand, and a surprise find in the Hillary archive. Ed must have known of the diary’s existence, but he made almost no mention of his father’s searing Gallipoli experience. In his two autobiographies, Ed uses three almost identical sentences to describe the most important event in his father’s life:

  When World War One erupted my father was quick to volunteer for what he regarded as a worthy cause. He went overseas as a sergeant, served with the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps in the grim Gallipoli campaign, was shot through the nose and laid low with severe dysentery. He was finally invalided home more than a little disillusioned about noble causes.3

  Gallipoli, and Percy’s account of it, deserve more space than this. Percy is recognisably the father of Edmund. He is hard-working, competitive, alert for adventure. He likes to express himself in writing. The diary shows a more vivid personality than the dour person portrayed by Ed. Percy describes a year that will change him forever and create a family climate that will profoundly influence his first son, born five years later. And he sketches briefly two more steps in the relationship between himself and Gertrude Clark that will be so important to him for the rest of his life.

  – CHAPTER 2 –

  Percy goes to Gallipoli

  Ed Hillary lived a life of adventure and risk, but his father Percy entered an arena of vastly greater risk when he went to Gallipoli in 1914. Of 13,977 New Zealand soldiers who took part, 2,799 died and 5,212 were wounded.1 Ed is often quoted as saying, ‘It is not the mountain we conquer but ourselves,’ but it is unlikely that Percy ever said, ‘It is not Gallipoli we conquer but ourselves.’ Indeed, there is no record of Percy saying anything about Gallipoli outside the 45,800-word diary he wrote at the time.2 I have edited this down to 4,100 words, all of them Percy’s. They show with rare eloquence the pre-Gallipoli bravado and the in-Gallipoli horror. He might not have talked to his sons and daughter about these events, but they were there beneath the surface for the rest of his life.

  Percy joined the New Zealand volunteer army on 20 October 1914, and for two months was in a training camp at Trentham, outside Wellington. In November, he escaped briefly to act as best man at the wedding of his sister Leila. It was also a chance to spend time with Gertie Clark, who joined the train at Te Awamutu en route to Auckland. ‘The wedding went off beautifully. At 9pm, Miss Clark and I left again for our southern destinations, she for Te Awamutu to continue her teaching, me for Wellington.’

  That might have been the end of it, but Gertie had other ideas. When she discovered that the troops were to leave Wellington on SS Willochra, she took the train south for the farewell parade in mid-December. Percy describes the day:

  This morning we marched up the streets of Wellington through crowds of cheering well-wishers. Girls were allowed to fall in with their soldier-boys and march beside them, taking this last opportunity of talking with their departing sweethearts.

  To my surprise Gertie was there and joined me having come all the way from Te Awamutu. She was accompanied by the two Misses Atkinson and we walked along having a great old chat. I was to meet her afterwards at the wharf where the Willochra was tied up. The wharf was crowded with men and women densely packed together. I couldn’t see the girls. I stood on a crane on the wharf till at 6pm someone told me the Willochra was leaving. So I waited till the ship was 10 feet out from the wharf then ran to get on (ahem!) but couldn’t, so I told those on board that I would get a launch and come out.

  Then I turned to take a car to the Atkinsons where Gertie is staying. As I was setting off a picket who had been left ashore to pick up stragglers caught me and made me fall in to join a boat going in half an hour. I went quietly but when they were busy I stole into a right-of-way, ran down it and then to the tramline where I caught a car and thus neatly escaped.

  I met Gertie near the Atkinsons and we all had tea up at their house. Afterwards Gertie and I went out to the pictures and took a taxi home, having a jolly evening together. I might get into trouble and even lose my lance-corporal’s stripe but I don’t care a pin now that I have seen Gertie and had the evening with her. In the end I caught a small steamer across to the Willochra and slipped on board. Thus I escaped scot free from any punishment.

  Cruise ship to Egypt and sightseeing in Cairo

  The four months before the landing at Gallipoli were full of excitement and pleasurable anticipation:

  The whole wide world now seems before us, full of strangeness and adventure, and while misgivings trouble our hearts at leaving our people and our native land, yet the old exploring, adventuring spirit of our nation draws us irresistibly to contemplate the future with delight and expectant elation. A spirit of comradeship exists everywhere.

  In Colombo, Percy records his first impressions of Asia:

  The beaches here are fringed with palms and the seething, swarming, confused chattering of swarthy Hindoos, makes us realise that we are in the East, the land of patience and impatience, of riches and poverty, of silence and uproar, of vivid attraction and awful repulsion, of stately pride and grovelling beggardom. All is animation, the Hindoos shouting their wares and the guards warning them away. I am in my glory and revel in scenes like this.

  As the ship enters the Suez Canal he notes:

  The shores here are bleak hills and arid desert. Last night we passed a monument on the spot where Moses and the Israelites crossed the Red Sea into Arabia. There is great excitement on board. We are going to Cairo to camp beside other New Zealand Forces. What grand sport! What a time I shall have! I’ll get all the leave I possibly can and explore the pyramids, sphinxes, temples and all the wonderful historical works of this ancient race of highly-civilised architects and sculptors. I’ll bring home cases of mummies and old Egyptian ornaments, weapons, etc.

  Percy did not bring home an Egyptian mummy but for three months he and his mates rode camels to the pyramids, skirmished with the Australians, and enjoyed the sights and smells of oriental bazaars. But by April Percy is noting that: ‘The Dardanelles bombardment is a most important event and is followed by us with keenest interest
for we believe our movements are influenced by its success. We hope to go to Turkey to help take Constantinople, thence through the Balkan states and Austria into Germany, but this is only our wish. We don’t know where we will go.’

  Two weeks later, they are preparing to depart:

  You should have seen the cleaning and polishing of rifles and the careful sharpening of bayonets. Everyone has suddenly become most attentive and minutely particular regarding their ‘best friend’, their rifle. There is severe work ahead and the prospect of it acted like a tonic on the men, even those who are lazy and neglectful.

  From the deck of our troopship we enjoy the sight of a mass of shipping, a forest of masts and funnels, like being in a leafless forest. It is said that 200,000 troops are taking part in this action. I am glad I have spent two educative months in Egypt but I rejoice in being at sea again and am now looking forward to exploring new cities and countries.

  I have become very philosophic. It is brave, strong work this soldiering, benefitting and improving the very weakest of characters.

  On 24 April he writes:

  For two days we were at sea, crossing the blue Mediterranean to Lemnos where we have been at anchor in this splendid harbour. There are dozens of warships, cruisers, destroyers and other war-craft and scores of troop transports. Everybody is on the tip-toe of expectation and excitement and speculating on our probable movements. Tomorrow at 1.30am on April 25th, we up anchor and set sail for a future none of us can guess.

  Gallipoli – the reality

  From 25 April, the day of the landings on Gallipoli, a month of diary is missing. None of the forces who landed on the Gallipoli peninsula captured the ground they had hoped for. To the south, the British and French never broke out of their beachheads. Twenty-five kilometres north at Anzac Cove, the Australian and New Zealand (ANZAC) troops established forward posts high on the inhospitably steep cliffs and gullies above the beach where they landed, but they could not break through the Turkish trenches defending the highest ground. Within days of the landing, fighting was deadlocked between the corpse-strewn trenches of the Turks and the ANZACs.

  25 May – in the trenches on Walkers Ridge. ‘On Sunday at dark we moved quietly off to a new position, no smoking or talking permitted. We filed silently past sleeping men in their dug-outs, past rows of hobbled mules with Indians beside them, then up a darksome gully enclosed by towering sandstone cliffs. From the tops comes the roar of rapidly-fired rifles and the hysterical clattering of machine guns, with a continuous circle of light from the rifle flashes edging the dark cliff-top. Further we went till right underneath the savage activity, then we climbed up a steep, zigzag road that led into the trenches where the men were fighting. Here, about halfway up, we lay down on the hard ground in our greatcoats with our equipment on and our rifles beside us ready loaded.

  ‘We dropped straight away into sound sleep but were awakened an hour later in alarm – the Turks were threatening our left flank. Hurriedly we jumped up, seized our rifles and fell in, waiting for the order to march off to support our comrades in the firing line. The rifle fire was now thunderous and seemed to spell death and danger for those above us, making our pulses beat the faster, but suddenly it all eased – the danger was past for the time.

  ‘On Monday an armistice was observed for nine hours – arranged by the German general – whilst the Turks buried their dead, six and seven deep. It was so unreal, the silence and peace, the oppressive stillness, that we really welcomed the sound of the rifle reports again when hostilities recommenced. It may sound a strange thing to say but it is true, that the stealthy quietness made us uneasy.’

  27 May – Anzac Cove. ‘Today I was told that I was transferred to a new platoon and that I was to be a sergeant. The weather here is clear, a most healthy and delightful climate. I go in for a swim every day – it is hot during the middle of the day, and the sea, but 100 yards away, is beautifully calm and cool. How we revel in it, although stray bullets hit the water near about us frequently, sometimes claiming a victim.

  ‘The atmosphere gives magnificent effects upon the Grecian isles scattered across the sea within our view. The sea is everywhere blue but the further isles are of a far deeper blue, whilst those bordering the horizon seem painted with solid cobalt. They stand on the sea like blue pieces cut from card whilst the sky and the sea effects defy description. Alas, in sad contrast, huge shells are humming over us, exploding with thunders, whilst bullets whistle and sing their death song.’

  31 May – Anzac Cove. ‘Anzac Cove is the name of this place where we have been for five long weeks now. Yesterday, whilst we were road-making in our little gully, Lieutenant Simpson of our 15th Company was shot dead through the heart by a stray bullet. It was hard, for he had not seen a Turk or fired a shot. He was a young Auckland solicitor. Every day men are being shot dead or wounded all about us and right beside us for although we are not in the trenches, we get shelled and fired at by the enemy all the time.’

  4 June – Quinn’s Post. ‘Two days ago we crossed over a hill to Shrapnel Gully where we cut ourselves dugouts and settled down. This is a more dangerous place than before; we had four men wounded and one killed before lunch. Yesterday at 10.30am we set off to occupy a trench at Quinn’s Post. The Turkish trenches are only 25 feet away from ours and we hear the Turks talking away and see them at their loopholes, through which they shoot at anything. No 3 trench is the most fearful place, the Turks throwing bombs which burst terrifically, shaking the ground and throwing up clouds of dust, blowing off an arm or leg. They are horrible, awful things and all night and day the Turks throw them over. A few landed nearby, but did no harm to us. An overcoat thrown over a bomb makes it almost harmless and by this means we lost only two killed and four wounded. Of course, we fired bombs back at them, and rifles blazed all night too. I had charge of a portion of the trench and didn’t have a wink of sleep all night, having to watch things and keep the men awake.

  ‘Today Captain Algie called for 100 men and two NCOs from Auckland Company to attack and capture Turkish trenches. I gave my name in as one of the volunteer sergeants and so did two others of the fifteenth company. It probably will be somewhat dangerous, so I am writing this before we march off tonight. I felt it was my duty to volunteer though I was anything but happy at the thought of the job in front of us. We are in for it now, however. We intend to get the trenches and hang on to them.’

  5 June – Quinn’s Post. ‘After the most awful 12 hours that could be imagined by even Dante himself, I am indeed lucky to be alive to tell the tale of horror upon horrors through which we passed. At 10.30pm last night we left our bivouacs and silently in single file marched along the track, then up the hill through big communication trenches to the entrance to the fire trenches. It was a glorious night, starry, brilliantly starry, the soft faint light emanating from these “eyes of heaven” giving a gentle radiance, which made all objects most mysterious. After a few minutes’ waiting, a fierce rifle fire broke out on every side, the continuous rattle and crackle filling the air with deafening sound, whilst the machine guns, soon joined in with their spiteful, crackling, running reports. The volume of sound swelled greater still as our howitzers thundered their whistling hells [sic] and our Japanese mortars threw their fearsome bombs into the enemy’s trenches. Accompanied by tremendous explosions, huge clouds of dirt were blown into the air. The cruel hand bombs, which burst with awful violence and terrible effect, were freely thrown and put the finishing touch to the infernal orchestra. The Canterbury volunteers now charged the enemy’s trenches and took them, capturing 80 prisoners, of which one escaped on the way along the trenches.

  ‘Meanwhile the Australians had taken the machine gun opposite Courtney’s Post, which was most deadly if left alone. Then 20 Aucklanders were sent as reinforcements to the Canterbury men and I was one of them. We went along a trench that ran up, curving through heaps of sandbags, till the blazing cliff top was reached where we crept one after another through a small curved tunnel in
which our rifles, shovels and sandbags got jammed to our alarm and impatient dismay. Emerging from the mouth of the tunnel we climbed over the sandbag parapet and ran swiftly across the ground intervening between our own and the Turks’ trenches, getting safely over this dangerous area and jumping into the latter like a shot. We then proceeded to make the trench stronger for defence and till daylight the Turks troubled us only with rifle fire so we felt fairly safe.

  ‘However we had reckoned without our host for their second trench back was at exact bomb-throwing distance. When daylight broke it showed our trench but little fitted for defence, it being a miserable place to convert to our use – there being dead Turks buried in the earth parapet, which we needed to move to be able to fire. We had thus no bomb proof shelter and our trench was crowded with men – twice too many. All along our front, these hand bombs, like black cricket balls, or innocent-looking jam tins, began to fly through the air, bursting within a second of landing with a deafening thunder and fearful results. The men not injured were stunned or dazed with shock. Like rain they came and our men began to thin rapidly, men falling dead all along, others writhing, groaning in fearful agony, yet others running with fearful gashed-open wounds to the entrance to a wee tunnel along which they had to crawl to reach our trenches in the rear.