Sir Lionel Hooke
Australian, 1895 - 1974
This party was tasked by Shackleton to sail to McMurdo Sound to sledge inland to lay deposits for him and his crossing party approaching from the Weddell Sea.
Hooke took part in sledging operations until his ship broke its moorings during a blizzard in May 1915, abandoning ten of the supply party at McMurdo Sound including expedition leader Mackintosh. Hooke was one of 18 men marooned on the ship, now under the command of former first mate Joseph Stenhouse and trapped, drifting in ice for nine months. Hooke finally established wireless contact with the Naval Radio Station at Williamstown Victoria as the vessel limped towards New Zealand. The ship was at the time at least five times more distant than the normal range of its transmitting equipment. AURORA finally arrived in Port Chalmers, New Zealand in April 1916. According to a report in the New York Times 14 May 1916 Hooke was widely applauded for his persistence, his resourcefulness and his inventiveness in continually overhauling his limited equipment, especially when jury-rigging an aerial to ice hummocks after a blizzard after AURORA was dismasted and the aerial carried away on 5 September.
After learning of his brother's death at Gallipoli Hooke left AURORA while plans were being made for the Ross Sea relief voyage (for the summer of 1917), amid tensions over the command of the vessel. The British, Australian and New Zealand governments funding the rescue appointed John King Davis commander and Shackleton, then in New Zealand after rescuing himself and then his men from Elephant Island, argued that Stenhouse remain, with the support of most of the crew on board. Leslie Thomson, Adrian Donnelly and Lionel Hooke wrote a letter to this effect that was published in the New Zealand papers the Evening Star 5 Oct 1916 & Otago Daily Times 6 Oct. John King Davis prepared Aurora for the relief voyage.
Hooke sailed to the UK to enlist in 1916, in the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve and later the Royal Naval Air Service where he trained as a pilot for the RNAS airships escorting convoys and patrolling for enemy submarines and mines. In September 1918 his airship was shot down in the English Channel by friendly fire on his last flight of WWI.
Hooke returned to Australia in 1919, to Amalgamated Wireless Australasia where his interest in research and development saw him transmit the first live radio broadcast to legislators 12 miles away in Victoria's Parliament in 1920, oversee direct wireless telegraphy between Australia and the UK and the re-equipping and reorganisation of the Australian coastal radio network which AWA acquired in 1922. He also designed the automatic distress transmitter (patented 1929) which enabled emergency messages to be sent from ships that did not carry a radio operator. It was a forerunner to the EPIRB. During WWII he channelled AWA's resources to communications for Australian and American forces in the Pacific. In 1945 Hooke became managing director and in 1962 succeeded his friend and mentor Sir Ernest Fisk as chair of AWA. He was awarded a knighthood in 1957 for his services to industry, and coronation medals in 1937 and 1953.
In February 1918 Hooke and seven members of the 18 member Aurora party during the drift received silver polar medals with clasp (or the clasp only in the case of Paton who already had a silver medal from previous service). The rest of the main party and drift party received bronze medals, bar two of the crew following Shackleton's recommendation because they had refused service on the closing days of the drift. Sir Lionel Hooke retained a life-long interest in Antarctica. He was a member of the Antarctic Club in Australia and died in 1974.
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