Richard Butson - Early Life and Antarctic

Early Life and Antarctic

Butson was born in Hankow, China of British parents on 24 October 1922. He was educated in England at the University of Cambridge and University College Hospital, graduating MB, BChir in 1945.

He served in the Home Guard and a Light Rescue Squad in London during the Blitz and as a Medical Officer with the Falkland Islands Dependencies Survey in the Antarctic from 1946 to 1948. During his year in the Antarctic, the expedition found a route for dog teams over the 5,000-foot high mountains of the Grahamland Peninsula and surveyed the last thousand miles of the most inaccessible coastline of the world.

For Bravery and Distinguished Service in Antarctica, Butson was awarded both the Albert Medal (later superseded by the George Cross) and the Polar Medal.

Butson's citation for the Albert Medal reads:

Whitehall, September 16, 1948.

The KING has been pleased to award the Albert Medal to Dr. Arthur Richard Cecil Butson, a member of the Falkland Islands Dependencies Survey, in recognition of his gallantry in the following circumstances. —

On the evening of 26th July 1947, an American member of the Ronne Antarctic Research Expedition fell into a crevasse some 6 miles from Base Two teams were sent to the rescue but the hazards of crossing a heavily crevassed glacier were much increased by darkness and it was not until 4 o'clock on the morning of 27th July that the crevasse into which the American had fallen was located. Butson immediately volunteered to be lowered into the crevasse where he found the American tightly wedged 106 feet down and suffering from shock and exhaustion. For nearly an hour he had to chip the ice away in an extremely confined space in order to free the American, who was brought to the surface and placed inside a tent. Butson then rendered the necessary medical aid and at dawn a return to Base was made carrying the American on one of the sledges.

Butson's own description of events:

When I got down to Peterson, I found him so tightly wedged in the narrowing crevasse that I could not get down to his level without removing some of my clothes. His haversack was throttling him so I first had to cut the strap. He was wedged head down with his shoulders across the crevasse. I pulled his shoulders around so that freed his chest a little. I was then able to get two slings under his thighs. While doing all this there were loud cracks and booming noises from the glacier’s movement and I felt the pressure on myself of the glacial movement. Those above could not hear me well so when I asked them to pull a little I could not stop them when Peterson screamed. He suddenly shot up from the wedged position like a cork out of a champagne bottle. When nearly at the top it looked as he was falling out of the slings and was going to land back on me! He was, however, pulled out by those on top. I got out after the equipment had been hauled up. The miracle of the rescue was in finding the small hole in the crevasse bridge in a glacier 6 miles by 8 miles in the dark of Antarctic night. Peterson subsequently served in the US Marines in the Korean War. He died recently of cancer. His mother was grateful and sent me food parcels and wanted me to marry her daughter – there was a problem – I was already married!