Windy Hilltops

Following from part one and part two.

The four missing people were finally safe, but a lot of cleaning up and analysis was still to be done. It took about three days for the last search party to return from the range, but criticism of the group began immediately, firstly in an editorial context on the same day in which their return was reported, and then with additional criticism from members of the public, fanned by the media. At least one searcher had sustained an injured foot, potentially serious in the back-country of the 1930s, and this at the very least highlighted that those who obliged others to search for them can put others at risk. Comments that had been made on a whim by the recued party about “never being lost” were now being taken out of context, and were received by some as insulting.

Fred Vosseler, who’d played a large part in organising the search effort, made comments while wearing his authoritative hat as President of the recently formed Federated Mountain Clubs organisation, publicly criticising virtually everything the group was reported to have done. His criticism provoked responses from the party members, who claimed that he’d been mis-led by media reports and inaccurate assumptions about their situation.

Eventually the arguments died down and fell out of the media, and what followed was a larger analysis, now beginning to be recorded in minutes of meetings and annual reports, of how the search effort had worked and what needed to be improved upon and done differently before there was need for another search of a similar nature. The structure for New Zealand’s largely voluntary and club-based Land Search and Rescue system that was set up in the 1930s, following what was partially learned from this event, lasted for 70 years.
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This post follows part 1 and is continued in part 3.

On the 30th of April, 1933, a large group on a Sunday walk, from a recently formed Carterton Tramping Club, happened to look over the Waiohine River. They spotted a party of four trampers on the far side, trying and failing to wade across. The group was soon recognised as the four missing people who had left Te Matawai Hut more than two weeks before. Once they’d made their way to the nearby cable-way and been ferried across, they were quickly fed and given warm cups of tea.

The story of the group’s plight was finally known. Bert O’Keefe had slipped whilst sidling the Broken Axe Pinnacles, after wind prevented them from going over. He fell about 100 feet, dragging Eric Hill with him as he fell. Mr Hill was protected when he fell onto his pack, but Mr O’Keefe sustained a gash to his face and was unconscious for about an hour. From then on he wore a balaclava perpetually, to protect the wound. Despite this injury, the unforeseen problem brewing was the loss of time. With two hours less daylight, they were unable to reach Holdsworth before dark, and had to camp on the bush-line.

They had expected they might need to camp somewhere for a night, but the weather then deteriorated severely, bringing snow and biting winds to the tops that would prevent them from accessing what were typically referred to as trampers’ highways of the time. Their situation became serious, especially when the weather lasted for the better part of two weeks. Having left with about two days of food between them and anticipated no more than a single night out, they were faced with miserable and extremely slow travel, attempting to escape through land below the bush-line that was not well known and (at the time) barely tracked at all.
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After the recent post regarding the search for Esmond Kime, I’ve decided that the New Zealand National Library’s Papers Past service is a gold mine of interesting history, with an added benefit of not needing to extract and dump 2,000 times as much toxic arsenic to get to the good stuff.

Another historic event that I’ve been keen to discover more about is what’s come to be known as The Sutch Search, which occurred in the Tararuas during the latter part of April in 1933. I’m posting this in three parts over a few days (see also part 2 and part 3, because there are so many newspaper articles that’s it’s a lot to take in. Part one covers the search effort.

I’m unsure why it’s popularly called The Sutch Search. Bill Sutch was only one of four missing people, but it may be because he became high profile in 1974 when he was accused, unsuccessfully and with no presented evidence, of trying to pass secrets to the Soviet Union. Forty years earlier, he was a young tramper exploring the mostly-unexplored Tararua Range. When the four people went missing they became the subject of one of the most significant land search and rescue operations in New Zealand’s history.

On Saturday 15th April 1933, four young trampers—Mr Eric Hill, Miss Morva Williams, Mr Bert O’Keefe and Dr. Bill Sutch—left Te Matawai Hut near Levin, and set out to follow a route to Mountain House, below Mt. Holdsworth. At a time when the northern Tararuas were only beginning to be explored, this route had been completed several times in summer, often in a single day. They wanted to see if it would be possible in winter.

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