Marvellous! The Trans-Antarctic Expedition Diary of Major ‘Roy’ Homard 1955-58

In 1958 Roy Homard joined one of the most important, though largely forgotten, polar expeditions of the Twentieth Century, Sir Vivian Fuch’s British Commonwealth Trans-Antarctic Expedition of 1955-58. Roy was a member of both the Advance Party – becoming one of the first men to survive under canvas during a grueling Antarctic winter – and the continental Crossing Party itself, maintaining the all-important vehicles over 2000 miles of uncharted and treacherous terrain. He became the second serving soldier ever to reach the South Pole by surface crossing – the first being Captain Oates in 1912 – and the first to complete a crossing from coast to coast.

There is probably no better personal record of the trials and tribulations faced and overcome by this small band of intrepid explorers than Roy’s diary, written with numbed fingers in a wind-whipped tent amid the wastes of the Polar Plateau. It is a tale of extraordinary courage and endurance – and of ultimate victory in the face of seeiming insurmountable odds. This is one of sixteen books on the Commonwealth Trans-Antarctic Expedition (TAE).