Page 99 - They Also Served

43
Belgrave Ninnis 1908.
Belgrave Edward Sutton Ninnis was born in Streatham on 22nd June 1887. His father was a naval surgeon and member of the British Arctic Expedition of 1875–1876. Attending the Royal Military College Sandhurst, he was commissioned into the Royal Fusiliers on 18th March 1908.
The London Gazette of 3rd March 1911 lists
Ninnis as: ‘Seconded for Special Regimental Employment dated 19th February’. The attachment was to Douglas Mawson’s Antarctic expedition. The Australian Mawson had gained fame as a member of Sir Ernest Shackleton’s Nimrod Expedition of 1907–1909 and turned down an invitation to join Captain Scott’s ill-fated Terra Nova Expedition the following year to prepare to lead his own expedition. Mawson set out from Hobart with the aim of exploring King George V and Adélie Land – the areas closest to southern Australia.
Ninnis was selected to act as handler of the dogs which were to pull the sledges and, on the voyage south, struck up a friendship with the other dog handler, Dr Xavier Mertz, a Swiss mountaineer. The party landed in Antarctica on 8th January 1912 and spent the austral summer building huts to support the exploration of the continent. Ninnis and Mertz were selected to join Mawson on the Far Eastern Party with the aim of penetrating 500 miles into unexplored territory.
At first, the three made good progress, with Mertz skiing ahead and Mawson and Ninnis driving the sledges carrying their supplies. On 14th December, by which time they had covered 311 miles, Mertz crossed a huge crevasse in a glacier covered with a cap of snow, without noticing it, followed immediately by Mawson and his sledge. However, Ninnis was walking beside the second sledge, and it is thought his extra ground pressure broke the crust and he and the sledge tumbled into the abyss. Mawson and Mertz peered over the rim and saw one dead and one injured dog about 150 feet below them, but there was no sign of Ninnis. After calling his name for three hours, they read the burial service and set course to return to base camp.
Short of food and with only part of a lightweight tent for shelter, they were forced to shoot the first dog the next day, sharing it with the remaining ravenous dogs.
93