Page 189 - They Also Served

90
John Hunt 1930.
Henry Cecil John Hunt was born in India in 1910. Like many children of his generation, his early life was marked by the First World War. Although killed in 1914, his father’s death was not confirmed until the body was found in 1921. Hunt was a contemporary of David Niven at Sandhurst and was awarded the King’s Gold Medal and Anson Memorial Sword before being commissioned into the King’s Royal Rifle Corps in 1930. For the next ten years he served in India, where he climbed extensively in the Himalayas, resulting in him being elected a fellow of the Royal Geographical Society. He was, however, rejected for the 1936 Everest expedition after a doctor detected a slight heart murmur and told him to ‘avoid climbing stairs’.
Returning to England in 1940, he was chief instructor at the Commando Mountain Warfare School in Braemar, returning to the King’s Royal Rifle Corps in 1943.
183