Obituary: Vern Gerard, a scientist prepared to put a question mark on Hillary

Wednesday, 20 April 2022

Vern Gerard at work in 1957 at Scott Base.

Vernon Gerard: scientist; b December 13, 1924; d March 19, 2022.

As someone prepared to question the actions of Sir Edmund Hillary, scientist Vern Gerard was a rarity among New Zealanders.

A member of the team that built Scott Base in 1957, Gerard was a colleague of Hillary, who made a famous dash for fame by crossing Antarctica on a Massey Ferguson tractor.

Vern Gerard in 2012, wearing his polar suit and boots from his first trip to Antarctica.

The Commonwealth Trans-Antarctic Expedition had two roles – setting up Scott Base and supporting English explorer Vivian Fuchs, who aimed to complete the first overland crossing of Antarctica, via the South Pole.

Hillary was supposed to lay food depots to the South Pole and return the same way.

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Vern Gerard takes a reading on Scott Base in 1957.

But never one to kowtow to the British, he instead kept going and stole the prize of completing the first overland crossing from Fuchs.

Hillary had already achieved worldwide fame by being one of the first pair to climb Mt Everest in 1953. In an interview with Stuff in 2012, Gerard departed from the standard line taken by most New Zealanders, glorifying Hillary’s actions in Antarctica.

New Zealand scientist Vern Gerard with a husky pup at Scott Base in 1957.

He made it clear he was uneasy about what Hillary had done, and did not regard him as a natural leader of men.

It was another party member, Bob Miller, who Gerard felt had the most influence.

“He was a much better leader than Hillary. He had to sort out the feathers that Ed had ruffled.”

Sherpa Tenzing Norgay and Edmund Hillary after their successful ascent of Mt Everest in 1953. Hillary achieved worldwide fame and later enhanced his reputation by completing the first overland crossing of Antarctica, via the South Pole.

He was also willing to criticise Hillary’s close friend and fellow mountaineer, Peter Mulgrew.

“He was a bit rough. When Ed was not there, he thought he ran the base and we (the scientific members) did not agree with that. He was just a radio man.”

In his 2012 book Hillary at Scott Base, A Kiwi among the penguins, Gerard paints a picture of Hillary as someone who always planned to go for the big prize, realising that beating Fuchs would further raise his worldwide profile.

Gerard was an unlikely witness to such a famous moment in Antarctic exploration.

He was born Vernon Bruce Gerard to English immigrant parents who settled in Christchurch.

Vern Gerard's medals: The British Empire Medal, the New Zealand War Services Medal (with wings), and the Polar Medal awarded by the Queen Mother at Buckingham Palace in 1960, along with his book written about his time at Antarctica.

He attended Christchurch Technical College and Shirley Intermediate, where he was dux. The intermediate was one of the first to offer algebra, geometry, French and science, and it was there that his interest in science was sparked.

Joining the Department of Industrial and Scientific Research (DSIR) in 1942, he was a technical assistant in Christchurch and briefly saw service in the war before completing an MSc with honours, in physics, in 1947, at Canterbury College.

Early work focused on the response of the ionosphere to magnetic field changes, before moving into developing airborne magnetometers. This was the start of his interest in electronics and instrument development.

Gerard spent a year stationed in Apia Observatory in Western Samoa in 1949.

That was followed by aeromagnetic surveys of parts of New Zealand, including a major survey of the North Island’s volcanic plateau and the associated geothermal thermal areas.

With his experience in magnetic observatory operations, Gerard was selected in 1956 to join the team to head south.

That August, he attended a training camp in the Southern Alps, organised by Hillary, to teach the basics of mountaineering and skiing.

It was an experience he greatly enjoyed, but he noted that competing with Hillary, in the snow, was a hopeless task for a man of science.

“It was rather like a hypersonic fighter escorting a squadron of World War II bombers.”

Once they arrived in Antarctica, Gerard’s role was to study the Earth’s magnetic field. He was part of a team of scientists led by Trevor Hatherton.

Living in a tent, until the base was built, Gerard had to check his equipment, which was housed in huts away from Scott Base, every 12 hours.

“I had to change the [recording] paper and I did that every 12 hours, for 12 months, without a break. I had to go out even if there was a blizzard.”

Gerard returned to Scott Base in early 1959 to re-calibrate the magnetometers and then took sabbatical leave from the DSIR, from 1960 to 1963, to work with the National Physical Laboratory in London, on atomic frequency standards. On returning to New Zealand, he made the first atomic (caesium) clock and gas laser to be built here.

Although he would go on to have a lengthy scientific career, working at DSIR in Lower Hutt, and spent time with the department of geophysics and geodesy at Cambridge University, he was always most proud of his Antarctic work.

In 2000, he returned to Antarctica and Scott Base, as one of the survivors of the first wintering team, to celebrate the new millennium.

Gerard retired in 1981, but never lost interest in Antarctica.

For much of his life, he was supported by wife Remy, whom he met in the Philippines in the mid-1960s after advertising in a local paper for a wife.

Remy responded positively but had to wait a year, as she was bonded to the government.

Living in Upper Hutt, he kept in contact with former expedition members and helped organise a reunion in 2007. With Remy, he made regular trips to the Philippines, where they owned a property.

A faithful supporter who always advocated for her husband, Remy argued that he did not get the recognition he deserved.

After his death, she said that many people, including those he worked with, often did not realise he was born deaf and that he taught himself to lip-read.

Journalist Tim Pankhurst wrote a long tribute in 2000 to the 23 men who made history in 1957 by building Scott Base and supporting Hillary to snatch glory from Fuchs.

“Amundsen, Scott, Shackleton, Byrd, Fuchs, and Hillary are among the great names on the Antarctica honours board. Hillary’s 22 companions, who performed such incredible deeds with courage and modesty, deserve to be remembered too.”

Sources: Dr Fred Davey, Remy Gerard, Stuff Archives and Ngā Taonga Sound and Vision.