Mr Eric W.K. Walton (Civil and Environmental Engineering 1939)

Originally published in The Times and The Daily Telegraph on 17 April 2009.

The Times, April 17, 2009

Kevin Walton, GC: naval engineer
 
Walton with the Queen at a reunion of VC and GC holders in 1999 Engineering and mountaineering were prominent themes for much of Kevin Walton's varied life, and it was in the latter sphere that he won his Albert Medal (later translated to George Cross) for rescuing a member of an Antarctic survey team from a crevasse in 1946.

But he also served ten years in the Royal Navy. He joined as an engineer officer at the outbreak of war in 1939, having studied engineering at Imperial College, University of London, and found himself in the thick of naval actions for the next five years.
He was aboard the battleship Rodney during the decisive action against the Bismarck on May 26, 1941, when Admiral Sir James Somerville's naval Force H attacked the German battleship with Swordfish torpedo-bombers, crippling her steering gear, then sank her with gunfire in the Atlantic.

Subsequently, Walton served in destroyers and took part in the Barents Sea action against the German cruiser Hipper and the pocket battleship Lützow on New Year's Eve 1942. Accompanied by six escorting destroyers, the two German warships emerged from their hiding place in Altenfiord on Norway's extreme northern tip to attack an Allied convoy of merchantmen taking supplies to Murmansk.

The German attack was frustrated, thanks to the skilful tactics of the commander of the naval escort, but the destroyer Onslow, in which Walton was engineer officer, was holed during the action. It was because of his skill and determination that Onslow was able to stay afloat and steaming long enough to reach port. Walton received the Distinguished Service Cross.

He was mentioned in dispatches while aboard HMS Duncan in the North Atlantic, again on destroyer escort duty, took part in several of the Malta convoys and served in Far Eastern waters towards the end of the war.

He would almost certainly have left the Navy at the end of hostilities in 1945, but an opportunity arose for him to sail for the Antarctic as a member of the Falkland Islands Dependencies Survey instead.

The primary purpose of the survey was to find a route over the mountainous Grahamland Peninsula, which stretches 1,000 miles northwards from Antarctica towards Tierra del Fuego, and then to map the peninsula's coastline. The expedition set up a base camp at Marguerite Bay and prepared for an estimated two years' work.
At about noon on August 24, 1946, a member of the survey team, Major John Tonkin, fell though the ice bridge over a crevasse and became wedged about 40ft feet down at a point where the crevasse narrowed. Ropes were lowered but it proved impossible to get a secure enough hold on Tonkin to haul him free of the ice walls of the crevasse.
Walton, who was with the party, volunteered to be lowered down to the trapped man to try to free him using the spike of an ice-axe as a hand tool, the narrow space not permitting it to be used in the normal way. He was first lowered down a wider part of the crevasse and worked his way precariously, with his crampons digging into the steeply sloping sides, until he could get close enough to chip away the ice gripping Tonkin's legs and torso.

The work was maddeningly slow and exhausting, as Walton struggled to retain his balance and foothold while working on the ice. Unable to continue without brief respite, he had to be hauled to the surface four times during the three hours it took him to release Tonkin. Meanwhile, there was a constant threat of the crevasse walls moving and crushing them. Tonkin was finally pulled clear with no more serious injuries than cuts and bruises. He was a man accustomed to hardship, having served with the wartime SAS. After narrowly avoiding capture during a clandestine mission in France soon after D-Day, he returned to hunt down and arrest the man who had betrayed his group to the enemy.

His rescue from the crevasse in Antarctica bore a remarkable resemblance to an incident, a month earlier, when an American member of the Ronne Antarctic Research group became similarly trapped and was rescued by Dr Richard Butson of the British survey team. Both Walton and Butson were awarded the Albert Medal for their courage and determination in saving life. This award, named after Albert, Queen Victoria's Prince Consort, was instituted in 1867 for saving life at sea, but ten years later the scope was broadened to allow awards for equal acts of gallantry on land.

During the Second World War, King George VI introduced the George Cross to recognise "acts of the most conspicuous courage in circumstances of extreme danger" by civilians or members of the Armed Services.

A Royal Warrant of 1971 authorised all surviving holders of the Albert Medal to exchange their awards for the George Cross.

Eric William Kevin Walton was born in Japan in 1918. His father was a missionary there and his mother came from a family who had served four generations in the Indian Civil Service. He was educated at Monkton Combe and Imperial College.

He played a prominent part in the work of the Antarctic Survey and, with Butson, scaled several previously unclimbed Antarctic peaks, some of which rise to heights of almost 13,000 feet. Both he and Butson also received the Polar Medal. He also received its Clasp and Silver Commendation for a further crevasse rescue, on South Georgia, in 1952.

After return from Antarctica he began a teaching career and taught workshop engineering at Oundle School, the Royal Naval College, Dartmouth, and at Malvern College. He was one of the original instructors at the Outward Bound Mountain School in the Lake District. He later became involved in the construction of a nuclear power station in Wales and also in British Voluntary Service Overseas.

When the Royal Warrant of 1971 entitled him to the coveted letters "GC", he chose to retain the emblem of the Albert Medal.

He is survived by his wife, Ruth, and by their son and three daughters.

Kevin Walton, GC, DSC, was born on May 15, 1918. He died on April 13, 2009, aged 90.

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Daily Telegraph, 17 Apr 2009

Lieutenant Kevin Walton, who died on April 13 aged 90, won a George Cross for rescuing a fellow member of an Antarctic research expedition from a crevasse in 1946.

As a member of a Falkland Islands Dependencies Survey party sent to establish bases in the South Shetlands and on Goudier Islet, Port Lockroy, Walton was with a four-man team seeking a dog-sledge route up a steep glacier to the plateau of the Graham Land Peninsula on August 24. Around midday Major John Tonkin (who had won an MC in France just before D-Day) was walking ahead to encourage the dogs when he disappeared through a badly-bridged crevasse. He fell some 40 feet to become jammed at chest level in a narrow part of the ice. Ropes were lowered, and he managed to get loops around his forearms but found himself stuck fast.

As the most experienced mountaineer in the party, Walton volunteered to go down. On being lowered he found the hard blue walls bristling with large spine-like ice crystals and, when the crevasse narrowed to eight inches 30ft down, could go no lower.
He had himself pulled up, moved a few yards to the side and lowered again to arrive with his feet level with Tonkin's head. He then made himself a tool from the sawn-off spike of an ice-axe, diligently chipping away until he freed Tonkin sufficiently for ropes to be fixed around his shoulders. The men above hauled, and the trapped man came free like a cork from a bottle.

The rescue operation took over three hours, and the nerves in Tonkin's arms and wrists were damaged for six months before he was fully active again. When Walton arrived at Buckingham Palace to be invested with the Albert Medal he found himself engaged in a light-hearted exchange with King George VI for wearing the wrong ribbon. Albert Medals were revoked by Royal Warrant in 1971, but Walton elected to retain his instead of exchanging it for a George Cross.

The son of a missionary, Eric William Kevin Walton was born on May 15 1918 in Kobe, Japan. He was interested in climbing by his godfather, Howard Somervell, a member of the 1922 and 1924 Everest expeditions, and also by the sight of Shackleton's sledge, which was kept at Monkton Combe School, where he was educated.

He graduated in Civil Engineering from Imperial College, London, where he had enjoyed climbing on the roofs, and became an engineer officer in the Royal Navy. It was while serving in the battleship Rodney that he heard a sermon by the future Bishop Launcelot Fleming. The two men struck up a friendship and Fleming inspired Walton with a love of the Antarctic, derived from his own prewar expedition to Graham Land. After taking part in the pursuit of Bismarck, Walton was in the destroyer Onslow in 1942 when she was holed in the engine room and set on fire in the action off the North Cape against the pocket battleships Hipper and Lutzow. As the only one who knew how to rope himself, he went down the hole to reach the seat of the fire, and, ever cheerful and unflappable, played a crucial part in keeping his ship afloat. He was awarded the DSC.
Then serving in the destroyer Duncan, he was mentioned in despatches on North Atlantic convoy duties and was sent to Malta and the Far East. On being demobbed he was immediately offered a place with the Antarctic expedition, Operation Tabarin, from which he returned home to marry Ruth Yule, with whom he was to have one son and three daughters.

In the new next few years Walton was British secretary of the International Antarctic expedition, keeping huskies in the gardens of the Royal Geographical Society in London, and acted as mechanic for Aston Martin in the Le Mans 24-hour race. For six months he was the first instructor for the Outward Bound course in the Lake District and also spent six months on a yacht which landed agents in Albania until it was clear that the details were being leaked from MI6 by the double-agent Kim Philby.

For seven months he was second-in command of Duncan Carse's survey mission to South Georgia, where he made what he considered a far more dangerous rescue than that of Tonkin by saving a geologist who had fallen 200ft down a crevasse. On his return home he received the Queen's Commendation.

As a schoolmaster at Oundle from 1952, he worked with the engineering workshops, repaired the clocks of local churches and vintage Rolls-Royces, and led the boys on arduous courses in the Scottish mountains. But his climbing career came to an end after he sliced off three fingers in the workshop, though they were sewn back on. Walton joined the Tyneside company Merz and McLennan in the late 1950s, which was involved in the fledgling nuclear power industry and then was a surveyor with the power station being built at Trawsfynydd in North Wales.

He then spent five years as the engineering lecturer at Dartmouth before moving to Malvern College in 1969. There he started the Penguin sailing club for pupils, which still flourishes, and was given a wide remit to design a programme to foster understanding of engineering among secondary school pupils nationwide. This attracted additional funding from several companies, including Rolls-Royce, and a pilot scheme, "Opening Windows in Engineering", set up in 1975, was soon operating in six major industrial centres. Two years later his Great Achievements in Engineering was published.

A man of great charm and modesty, he was always ready to pay tribute to the courage of fellow members of the Victoria Cross and George Cross Association, whose exploits had required the taking of tremendous risks. As a mountaineer, he claimed to have been trained not to take chances.

Walton was awarded the Polar Medal with Antarctic clasp, 1946-7, and set up a press with Malvern School which mainly reissued classics of polar exploration. He wrote Two Years in the Antarctic (1955) and was a joint author of Portrait of Antarctica (1983) which contained a limited text but gave a fine impression of field operations since the 1930s. The other authors were Walton's son Jonathan, his nephew Paul Copestake and a son-in-law, Jim Bishop, who was killed on the international Karakoram expedition in 1980. Kevin Walton is commemorated by Mount Walton in British Graham Land.