Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

A Soviet-British Pamir Expedition Medal awarded to Wilfrid Noyce - a member of the famous 1953 British Expedition that made the first ascent of Mount Everest - who died in a climbing accident on Mount Garmo, in the Pamirs, on 24 July 1962

Soviet-British Pamir Expedition Medal 1962, 100mm., silver base metal medallion, with painted obverse depicting two climbers standing side-by-side upon a diminutive mountain, with the U.S.S.R. and U.K. flags above, inscribed in Russian with the year date 1962; reverse inscribed in the Russian alphabet, ‘Wilfrid Noyce’, good very fine £500-600

Wilfrei Noyce was born in Simla on 31 December 1917, the eldest son of Sir Frank Noyce of the Indian Civil Service. He was educated at Charterhouse and King’s College, Cambridge.

During the Second World War he was initially a conscientious objector and joined the Friends Ambulance Unit. He later chose to serve as a Private in the Welsh Guards, before being commissioned into the King’s Royal Rifle Corps in July 1941. He later served as a Captain in the Intelligence Corps, serving in India and the Far East.

After the war he was employed as a Schoolmaster, teaching modern languages, firstly at Malvern College and then at his old school, Charterhouse.

By the age of 18, Noyce was already a fine climber. Before the war he had produced climbing guides for Snowdonia and was a highly rated and accomplished Alpine climber. After the war he continued to climb and he became a climbing member of the 1953 British Expedition to Everest. Edmund Hillary said of him, ‘Wilf Noyce was a tough and experienced mountaineer with an impressive record of difficult and dangerous climbs. In many respects I considered Noyce the most competent British climber I had met.’ In the expedition Noyce was designated to write despatches, with Charles Evans, be in charge of the baggage party; in charge of the mountaineering equipment, and with George Lowe, established Camp VII on the Lhotse face of Everest. With Sherpa Annulla, he attained a position overlooking the South Col of the mountain and laid in material for Camp VIII. His experiences were recorded in his book, South Col.

As a member of this successful Mount Everest Expedition, Noyce duly received one of the 37 specially inscribed Coronation medals from Her Majesty Queen Eilzabeth II, at a presentation at Buckingham Palace on 16 July 1953. Post-Everest, Noyce continued to climb, making several first climbs, with others, of mountains and routes in Nepal and Pakistan, including Machapuchare, Signalkuppe and Trivor.

In 1962 Noyce was one of the 18-man Soviet-British expedition, led by Sir John Hunt, that was to climb in the Pamir Mountains, a range in Central Asia to the N.W. of the Himalayas. Their main target was an ascent of the 24,590 foot Communism Peak (formerly Stalin ‘s Peak; currently Ismoil Somoni Peak) the highest mountain in the U.S.S.R. - a mountain and range unknown to western climbers. In a preparatory climb, the 21,800 foot Mount Garmo was successfully conquered , but in the descent, Noyce and his climbing partner, Robin Smith, fell 4,000 feet to their deaths. They were buried where they fell. Despite the tragic loss, the remainder of the team went on to successfully climb Communism Peak.

With copied research and also the book, Red Peak, by Malcolm Slesser, which gives a personal account of the Pamir Expedition of 1962 - the rivalries between the English and Scottish components of the team and between the British and Soviet members only exacerbating the difficult climbing conditions.